


do you recall how we came to that place?

by OrlesianEmpire



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Angst, But doesn't reveal anything about what happens after the content barrier, F/M, I went NORTH like three years ago and what happened there never quite left me, No SMEN spoilers, SMEN (Fallen London), SMEN destroyed me and all I got was this lousy t-shirt, Seeking Mr Eaten's Name (Fallen London), The content alludes to publicly available SMEN information, Tragedy, also just so we're clear Ellia and Balzac are both pansexual disasters, no hetero lmao, oh also extremely mild sexual content but just the tiniest mention really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29931336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrlesianEmpire/pseuds/OrlesianEmpire
Summary: do you recall how we came to that place? and they sang of their lightnings and shapeful disgrace? and we tilted our vanes and ennobled our spires. they welcomed us then and commingled all choirs.and not enough, not enough. still it mourns, and still waits the Sun.they loved each other above all things, above the Neath and below. but a reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 3





	do you recall how we came to that place?

On the surface, she looks just as she ever does; poised, elegant, her features fixed in a serene smile. But her eyes…her eyes are shadowed, dark with something that sends a shiver down Balzac’s spine.

“Ellie?” He asks, his hand stretched out towards hers across the table. “Are you all right, pet?”

A blink, a pause, and the darkness passes, quick enough that Balzac thinks it might just have been the candlelight. Stormy grey eyes meet his own, and Ellia smiles placidly. “Yes,” she says, reaching for her teacup with her left hand and Balzac’s with her right, their fingers lacing as she brings the cup to her lips, “I simply had an…intrusive thought.” She shrugs one shoulder lightly. “Nothing more.”

A coy smile plays around her lips, but she says nothing more. Wariness darts at the edges of Balzac’s consciousness, but he pushes it aside. There will always be secrets between them, he reminds himself. A sad side effect of their lives in this dark place. He accepts it grudgingly as one more thing he cannot know about his lover and resolves to move on.

The teacakes come, their conversation moves on to other things, and after a pleasant hour of light banter Ellia rises to leave. She slips on her gloves, making even such a simple act appear utterly charming, offers Balzac a chaste kiss to the cheek, and slips away to carry out the rest of the day’s tasks.

It is only after he has paid the bill and left that Balzac comes to a realization. He hadn’t eaten a single teacake himself, but he had left an empty plate at the table. Sixteen of Caligula’s finest, plumpest pastries.

And Ellia had eaten every single one.

*

He knocks twice on the door.

Pauses, knocks once.

Pauses again before knocking twice.

Rounds it off with three quick, sharp knocks, and opens the door.

Ellia is lying on the divan below the window, looking down onto the Bazaar Side-Streets with an unreadable expression. She doesn’t look up as Balzac toes off his boots and hangs his cloak up on the hook by the door, seemingly absorbed in the hubbub going on in the streets below. “Anything interesting?” Balzac asks, as he walks over to the sofa for a kiss.

Ellia tilts her head up to accept it, tearing her eyes away from London’s masses to glance up at her lover. “London never changes, day in, day out.” She bares her teeth in a quick, mirthless smile. “Not that we can call it day per se, but the sentiment stands.”

Her eyes dart down to the street again, taking in everything and nothing all at once. “Those poor fools,” she says, her voice terribly soft, “don’t they know none of it matters in the end?”

Balzac bites back a stinging retort. He hates it so when Ellia lapses into melancholy. “Don’t be so maudlin,” he says at last, “I know you miss the sunlight, _ma chérie_ , but it distresses me when you talk like this.”

Ellia looks up from the street again, her eyes meeting his own. And he sees it clearly this time, the shadow that lurks in her silver gaze. Briefly, but surely, he sees a darkness inside of Ellia’s soul.

Before he can say anything, Ellia is smiling again, in that way that makes Balzac’s heart skip a beat. “Take off that mask,” Ellia coos, reaching up to untie the ribbons that hold it to his face, “and come give me a kiss. I missed you today, my handsome one.”

And doesn’t that just make everything else unimportant, Balzac thinks. He allows Ellia to slip the mask off his face, caressing his cheek with a thumb as she sets it aside.

He reminds himself that Ellia gets like this, every once in a while. He reminds himself that Ellia loves the sun, that she misses the light and warmth of it more than anything else from the surface. He repeats the words in his head that came from Ellia herself; that she loves him, that she loves being with him, that she does not regret coming to the Neath, because the Neath brought them together, and nothing else matters more than that.

Ellia’s nightgown slips off one shoulder as she offers up a breathy sigh of desire, and Balzac doesn’t think of much else after that.

*

“What are you thinking of, that has you frowning so?”

Ellia looks up from her typewriter, leans back into the arms that Balzac has stooped to wrap around her shoulders. “Jason,” Ellia answers honestly, closing her eyes, “has been on my mind all day.”

Balzac tenses, almost imperceptibly. “What specifically about Jason, pet?” He asks, his voice carefully even. “Have you learned anything new about what happened?”

Ellia shakes her head, her eyes still closed, her face expressionless. “The lead has been dead for so long…” she sighs, her shoulders slumping in Balzac’s hold, “I’m starting to think I shall never know who killed him, or why.”

Balzac is silent, but his arms tighten just a bit around Ellia’s form. There’s little comfort he can offer regarding the nature of Jason’s death. Ellia hates being reminded of the circumstance that brought her to the Neath, the heinous murder of her older brother, all the family she had had in the world. “Can I help at all?” He asks quietly, even as he knows what Ellia’s answer will be.

Her eyes open slowly after a moment, and she looks up at Balzac’s inverted face with a wry, tired smile. “No,” she says simply, her tone resigned, “but thank you, love.”

Balzac’s heart aches. He presses a kiss to Ellia’s forehead and stands up straight, suddenly much more tired than he had been when he first walked into the room. “It’s late,” he says, after a pause, “will you come to bed?”

Ellia sighs. “Soon,” she promises, stretching her back languidly before reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, “there’s just one more thing I need to do.”

Balzac recognizes the dismissal for what it is. He strokes back a stray curl of hair from Ellia’s forehead before turning towards the bedroom. “Don’t be too long.” He cautions, though he knows the warning will be ignored.

And sure enough, Ellia offers no reply as Balzac heads into the bedroom and quietly shuts the door.

*

Morning, or whatever passes for it in the Neath, comes far too soon.

Balzac wakes, alone in Ellia’s massive, fluffy white bed. He glances over to the left side of the bed, pushes aside a mound of frilled lace pillows to confirm his suspicions; the other side of the bed looks decidedly unslept in. And Ellia isn’t there.

He forces himself to rise from beneath the warm covers after a moment of laziness. He washes his face in the basin in the corner, dresses in the clothes he left draped over the armchair by the window, and steps out into the corridor, looking for his lover.

The apartment is as quiet as it is cold, and Ellia is nowhere to be found.

Balzac frowns, making his way towards the open door of Ellia’s study, poking his head into the room and scanning it quickly.

It is empty. Unnervingly quiet. Even the clock on the desk has ceased to tick.

Walking over to the desk, he inspects the usual detritus with a sharper eye than usual. He notices the candles first; several of them, burnt down to stubs, more numerous than is necessary, or even reasonable. The rich, carved mahogany is covered in the usual refuse; stray pieces of paper, covered with notes in Ellia’s neat, looping cursive. Unfilled ink pots, broken quills, and an empty coffee cup, an imprint of vibrant red on the rim the only trace left of Ellia that remains.

In the middle of the desk, decidedly isolated from the piles of rubbish, is the typewriter Ellia bought almost a year ago. Her sole remaining possession from her days of cavorting with London’s Bohemian elite. The paper tucked behind its cylinder appears to be blank, at first, but as he leans in, Balzac can make out a sparse few words printed onto its surface:

_What is due?  
What is forgotten?  
Who is Salt?_

Unnerved, for reasons he can’t quite explain, Balzac moves to take a step back, but not before he notices one final sentence, several lines below the others, aligned to the other side of the paper. He steps properly away from the desk then, taking a few quick, steadying breaths to calm himself, before turning away from the typewriter in what can only be described as faint revulsion.

He doesn’t run, but it’s the fastest walk he’s ever made to the kitchen, shocked to find his hands trembling as he puts the kettle on for some tea. It’s only after the first soothing sip that he finds himself composed enough to think back on the final words on the paper, wondering why they seemed to frighten him so badly.

_A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely._

*

“Ellie…?” Balzac’s brow wrinkles as realization envelops him. “What’s going on?”

Ellia looks up from her book, her eyebrows raised inquisitorially. “What’s going on with what, dearest?”

Balzac looks back down at the newspaper in his hands, tapping it lightly with his knuckles. “You haven’t been in the papers in a few weeks now,” he frowns, his gaze narrowing as he leans back in his seat. “Not since our wedding, in fact. And come to think of it, Slowcake’s little gremlin hasn’t been round here to see you in quite some time.”

Ellia’s lips twitch at the epithet, but her reaction is far from the passionate display Balzac had expected it would be. “Yes,” she says, with a shrug, “I’m afraid my social life has been…fairly inactive of late.”

Balzac blinks. Ellia, _socially inactive_? “How?” Is the first thing he’s able to blurt out. “Ellie, you have London wrapped around your little finger! You’re the most prolific author in London today!”

He gestures towards the window, jabbing at it with an almost accusing finger. “You gave up a career as a correspondent because your adoring public wouldn’t stop begging you for more stories!” He half-rises from his seat in agitation, so great is his surprise. “Your last piece was called a classic!”

Ellia looks slightly abashed, but still utterly calm, and Balzac feels the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she realizes she’s supposed to cause a scene. “Balzac, sweetling,” she says, putting her book down and giving him her full attention, “let me explain.”

Balzac reluctantly sits back down, and Ellia sighs. She seems to struggle with the words for a moment, her hands most uncharacteristically twisted in her lap as she seeks out the words she is looking for. “I suppose you could say I am on hiatus,” she says, after a while, “with everything that’s been happening lately, I’ve decided that it’s in my best interests to…lay low for a while.” She spreads out her hands, shaking her head. “That’s all it is.”

Balzac stares at her, as though he has never seen her before in his life. “A hiatus?” He echoes faintly. “Because of everything that’s been happening?”

Ellia nods. Balzac waits to see if she will say anything more, but Ellia is distressingly silent. “And what,” Balzac forces himself to ask, even though he can feel himself beginning to dread the answer, “is it exactly that’s been happening, Ellie?”

Ellia says nothing at first, but looks down at her lap in sudden contrition. “Change, Balzac.” She says simply. Sadly. As though the confession causes her pain. “Change, my love.”

Balzac shakes his head, annoyed both at Ellia’s cryptic answers and his own inability to comprehend any of what is happening. “I don’t understand, Ellia,” he says, and it’s so, so hard, but he manages to keep the venom out of his voice as he says it, “what’s changed?”

Ellia smiles sadly, folding her hands in front of her mouth. “Everything.” She says, and she seems to curl in on herself as she says it. “Society. The Neath.” She sighs, closing her eyes. “And me, Balzac. Most of all, me.”

She says nothing else, and neither does he. What can he say? What can either of them? The room seems to be tightening around them, suffocating them with the density of the secrets that go unspoken between them. Balzac doesn’t understand, and he _hates_ the things he can’t understand, but try as he might, the words he thinks he could say to mend what seems to be broken just seem to keep eluding him.

So he says nothing, and neither does Ellia, until the grandfather clock in the hallway rings out, and Ellia rises from the sofa. “I’ll get you some tea before we go to bed, my love.” She offers.

She’s smiling again, and Balzac feels a stir of something tender inside him at the sight of it. He rises from the armchair, walking towards Ellia to embrace her firmly. “Let’s get it together,” he suggests, feeling both as though he wants to be away from her but can’t bear for them to be apart, “I’ll help.”

Ellia’s arms wrap instantly and automatically around her lover’s, tucking her head below Balzac’s chin in a way that feels like coming home for them both. “You always do,” she says, squeezing like a vice, “you always do, love of mine.”

For the rest of the evening, Balzac is determined not to wonder why she sounded so sorrowful as she had said it.

*

“…and would you believe, he tore the hat right off her head, and her hair came off along with it!” Balzac chuckles, his expression positively gleeful. “In front of every guest at the party!” He steers them past the Singing Mandrake and down the street that will take them home. “She’s never going to live this down.”

However, his laughter tapers off as she realizes Ellia has said nothing, nor has she laughed with him. A prickle of irritation threatens to sour Balzac’s mood, but he determinedly taps Ellia’s shoulder, forcing her to look at him as he brings them both to a stop. “Still with me, dove?” He asks.

Ellia twitches, looking up at Balzac with a deeply perturbed expression. Instantly, he is alert, one hand slipping to the knife at his belt as he scans the surrounding area. “What is it?” He asks, his eyes narrowed beneath his mask. “Did someone here scare you?”

“I…I don’t know,” Ellia says faintly, biting her lip, “I thought I saw…I…he was…” she takes a deep breath, steadying herself against a nearby lamppost, “I thought I saw a scar….”

“A scar?” Balzac relaxes, but keeps a hand on his knife just in case. “Petal, most people in London have scars these days…it’s hardly worth mentioning.”

“No, _no…._ ” Ellia shakes her head firmly. “No, Balzac, I…”

She stops, sighs, and passes a hand over her face. “I’m sorry, I thought I saw something, but it must have been my imagination.” She offers him an apologetic smile, reaching for his hand. “I’m so sorry, love. Tell me the story again?”

Balzac twists his lips, unsure if it’s worth getting into an argument over this. “The whole story again?” He asks, allowing himself to sound just petulant enough as he says it.

“Yes.” Ellia smiles, touching his cheek. “I heard the first half, honest. But I do love hearing you speak, beloved. About anything at all.”

Mollified, Balzac gestures for them to keep walking as he starts up the story again. He keeps an eye out on the passersby as they walk, just in case, but Ellia seems to have relaxed, her fingers tangled around his own as they walk towards the Bazaar. She says nothing as Balzac recounts the tale of the theft at the Brass Embassy’s latest ball, her gaze somewhat unfocused as she lets him guide them towards their destination.

He finishes the story again, and Ellia does laugh this time, her hand warm in his own. “Delightful.” She says, shaking her head. “I wish I hadn’t missed it.”

“You should come to the next one,” Balzac insists, as he holds open the door of Ellia’s apartment for her. “I’m certain my contacts could secure you an invitation.”

Ellia smiles ruefully, taking off her cloak and hanging it by the door as she shakes her head. “I’m sure they could,” she says, slowly, “but I don’t know if I can attend.”

“Of course you can,” Balzac retorts, confused, “there’s plenty of humans at those things, and you know a few people in Hell anyway, don’t you?”

Ellia sighs softly, reaching up to take Balzac’s mask off. “It’s complicated.” she says, and he frowns in response. She doesn’t seem to be doing it to be coy and that concerns him. “For now, let’s just say I can’t promise anything, but if I can make it, I will. Is that all right?”

Balzac folds his arms across his chest. He wonders if she should say something now, if the time has come for him to speak up properly about how annoyed he is with her lately. He’s getting positively sick of Ellia and her enigmatic little statements, her mysterious, lengthy disappearances, and of course, the dullness and the vacancy that seem to have taken up residence in his once cheerful, charming wife. He looks down at her face, her eyebrows slightly raised and her lips still fixed in that melancholy little smile, and without warning, all the fight in him just dies.

“Yes, it’s all right,” he says tiredly, even as he fights the urge to howl that nothing will ever be all right again.

*

“Your move.” Balzac says finally, when the silence has stretched too thin.

Ellia doesn’t react, and Balzac resists the urge to fidget like a schoolboy. He wonders briefly if she has even heard him, but after a second Ellia lifts her hand. “Balzac, my love?” She says quietly, the tip of one slim white figure caressing her queen.

“Yes?” Instantly, his entire body tenses up, and he can feel dread beginning to creep its way up his spine. “Is something wrong?”

And by God, Ellia is so slow to react to anything these days. Each second that passes sends another drop of cold sweat down Balzac’s spine.

She shakes her head at last, pensively fingering the chess piece like she’s utterly captivated by it. “No, nothing, but…” she picks up the queen, studies it carefully for a moment before she sets it back down, “I was just wondering.”

It takes nearly all his willpower to stop himself from upending the board in its entirety and flying into a rage. “Wondering?” He urges, leaning forward in his chair.

“Yes…” Ellia finally meets his gaze, and Balzac is rattled to see tears in her eyes. “Yes, I was wondering.”

Balzac waits as long as he can, but Ellia offers nothing more. Biting back a frustrated cry, he slumps back into his seat, glaring at the chessboard in anger and dismay. Confusion and hurt battle for dominance in his heart, whilst his brain seems to choke on the bitter taste of utter incomprehension.

There are so many things he wants to say, so many questions he longs to ask, and yet he knows that nothing, _none of them,_ are the right thing to say.

“Are you going to move?” He asks at last, barely able to keep the tremor out of his voice.

Ellia looks up again at the sound of it, suddenly startled. A tear slips down her cheek, silent, glistening in the candlelight, but she hardly seems to notice it. Balzac bites down hard on his bottom lip, unwilling and unable to cry, feeling as though if he were to start, he would never, ever stop.

Ellia pushes her chair away from the table then, rising like a ghost from her seat to walk over to Balzac’s. She has always been thin, her form slender and girlish, but her gown hangs from her like it was made for someone two sizes bigger. Balzac wants to scream. He wants to break something, preferably expensive and irreplaceable. He wants to tear the hair out of his head and open his maw and screech and screech until he finally, _finally_ understands what the hell is happening.

Ellia leans over him, her ash-colored curls tumbling over her face as she brings her mouth close to his own, and all too soon (and yet still not soon enough) they are kissing. Kissing with wild, passionate abandon. Kissing as though they are both drowning and they are each other’s air. Kissing as though locking lips is the only thing that can save their lives.

Balzac wants to stop (he doesn’t want to stop). He needs to know; he needs to understand. He needs just a moment, just one moment of clarity (he needs Ellia. He has to have her). He wants to kiss her. (He wants to help her). He wants to take her to bed. He wants to hold her. (He loves her. He loves her. He loves her to _death._ ) He loves her so much it hurts.

He barely even realizes that they’ve stumbled into the bedroom, Hands flying over buckles and buttons, fabric being torn in clumsy desperation. All at once he is overwhelmed by touch, by taste. Skin. Sweat. Tears? 

Tears. Ellia is crying.

Somewhere in Balzac’s mind, the thought registers, but dully, like the beginning of a headache. The tears are flowing freely from her eyes, red-rimmed, but wide open, her soft, pouting mouth trembling as she kisses him again and again. Lips. Neck. Shoulder. A wrist, locked in a vice-like grip and yanked towards shaking lips. Balzac wants to say something, but he can only groan when Ellia wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him into bed.

They’re naked; blissfully, gloriously naked. Ellia smells like roses and honeysuckle, as she always does, and her arms are soft and warm, her legs tangled with his own as her hands roam his body in almost anguish.

But there’s something else, his mind protests. Even as his body yields to the frenzied touches, even as his heart races as he trembles under Ellia’s mouth. There’s something there…something isn’t normal…something isn’t the same….

Ellia is whimpering now, half with lust, but half with tears, and Balzac numbly reaches out to kiss her. What else can he do? Words mean nothing now, not with a love that language can’t contain thumping painfully beneath his breast. Not with the sweetness of his lover’s touch, her taste on his lips so exquisite there will never be a word sufficient to describe it. Not when he feels the cold sting of something dark and desperate and so, so _terrifying_ below every touch of Ellia’s fingers. What words could there possibly be that could mean _anything_ right now?

Ellia’s fingers move frantically to the hard, aching length between his thighs, her mouth fixed on his collarbone, and he cannot keep himself intact anymore. When he slides into her, he feels whole again, in a way he hasn’t been able to for how many weeks now? How many months? He hasn’t been whole, not for so long, and only joined to her like this can he feel like he is truly alive again.

He floats, his mouth open in a wordless cry as a climax unlike any he has ever had ripples through him. Her fingers dig into his shoulders, his eyelids fluttering he sinks into pure pleasure, and in that moment, in that single, earth-shattering moment, he _knows_.

Wax. The smell, beneath the roses and the honeysuckle. Beneath even the scent of sweat and sex. Faint, but unmistakable. _Wax._

*

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes with a start.

He sits up quickly, his tongue thick with sleep, blinking rapidly as he looks around the room. “Ellie?” He rasps, gripping the sheets anxiously. “Ellia?”

“I’m here.” The reply comes from his left, and Balzac almost moans with relief. Ellia’s form swims slowly into view, and he inches closer to her instinctively. She is sitting upright in bed, still naked, a sheet draped carelessly over her pale form. Balzac lifts up a hand to reach out to her, but for some reason he can’t explain, it simply drops back down to his side with a thump.

Ellia watches him struggle with an unblinking gaze, her expression utterly unreadable. Her features are unmoved, neither by joy nor sadness. Her eyes are tired, her face pale and wan, and in the absence of all but the faintest of light, she barely looks human.

Balzac struggles to keep his eyes open, but the darkness and his own fatigue are conspiring against him. Yet something in him, some small part of him in which he can hear alarm bells clanging, keeps him fighting for consciousness.

Ellia notices it, because of course she does (She’s part of me, isn’t she? And I her? My love, my wife, my better half). “Hush now, love,” she says softly, stroking back his hair, “go back to sleep. It isn’t time to wake yet.”

Balzac shakes his head, wearily, groggily. “No,” he says hoarsely, “no, I won’t.”

Ellia smiles sadly, and there it is again, that broken-hearted, soulless expression that makes him want to die. “I know what you’re doing,” he says, and he does know. He had known all along, hadn’t he, that this would happen? (You knew. You knew it would end like this. You knew this day would come.)

“Balzac,” Ellia utters the name with quiet reverence, and Balzac whimpers. He can barely keep himself steady now, his arms shaking with the effort of holding himself aloft. What was it? Laudanum? Opium? He wants to weep, but he barely has the strength.

Ellia looks mournful now, as she realizes that he must know. “My love, my heart,” she says, her voice faint, “you can’t understand.”

“You never allowed me to.” It’s getting harder to think now, harder to even string together enough words to spit out a sentence. He knows. He knows, and he doesn’t know how he knows, but he has to stop her somehow. He _has_ to.

“Ellie, my Ellie, please…” Balzac grips the sheets, his eyes burning as he forces them to stay open, to fixate on his love’s face. “Ellie, stay. Ellie, don’t go.”

Ellia shakes her head. One simple, sad gesture. “I must.” She says, with awful, bone-chilling finality. “I must, my love. A reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.”

Balzac can’t hold back a sob, the sound guttural, primal, a resounding note of pure loss. “No,” he says again, and God, why can’t he speak? Why can’t he _move_?! He tries to reach out again, fails, and cries out in agony. “Then take me with you,” he begs, “take me too.”

Ellia shakes her head again, but whatever is left of her manages to rustle up a smile. “I will take you with me,” she promises, reaching out to cup his face, “in my heart.”

Balzac presses his cheek to Ellia’s palm, clumsily, desperately, clinging to the only part of her he can reach in this state. The flesh is cold, her fingers stiff, but he hardly notices. The band of her wedding ring digs into the flesh of his cheek, but he hardly cares. (Oh please, please don’t go…I love you, _I love you_ , don’t leave.)

The fatigue is overwhelming now, and Balzac wrenches out another sob against it. He fights, he fights it with all he has, but Ellia is leaning forward now, her lips pressed to his forehead, and he smells it all. Rose. Honeysuckle. _Camphor. Crushed grass. Ice._

“Look to me for guidance, and I will always lead you North.” She whispers, tender, like a prayer, and Balzac fades away, tears coursing unhindered down his cheeks.

When he finally wakes in the morning, she is gone. And this time, she won’t return.

*

*

*

_In Loving Memory_

_Ellia Louise Stoneham_

_All shall be well,_   
_And all shall be well,_   
_And all manner of thing shall be well._

Balzac looks up from the newspaper, his expression blank. “Is this supposed to mean something to me?” he asks, throwing the paper back at him.

The Affectionate Devil catches it easily, his yellow eyes glinting in the candlelight. “Balzac,” he says, and his voice is uncharacteristically soft, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Balzac scoffs, his hackles raising immediately. “Fuck you,” he hisses, his hands clenched at hos sides, his teeth bared in a snarl, “you have no idea what this loss means to me, and don’t even pretend like you do.”

He reaches for the bottle of Muscaria Brandy on the side table and flings it at the wall, his chest heaving. “You would have happily taken both of our souls when she was still here and walked away without so much as a backward glance, so _shut up._ ”

He doesn’t respond, and Balzac chokes out a mirthless laugh. Because he agrees with him? Probably. Because he doesn’t think he would believe him if he were to protest? That too.

He looks around for something else to break, and he wordlessly hands him another bottle of wine. “If it helps.” he murmurs, with a shrug.

It doesn’t, but he breaks it anyway, smashing it against the wall and burying his face in his hands. It’s been eight weeks. Eight abysmal, stinking, _God-forsaken_ weeks, and Balzac doubts the day will ever come when he feels anything but agony.

His companion comes to stand at his side, dodges the fist that comes flying his way, and holds him in his arms instead. “I liked her,” he says simply, and there’s no pretense in it. In the years that they have known each other, he has long since given up on trying to sway him with falsehoods and empty words. “She was charming. Beautiful. Delightful company.”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Balzac snaps again, but there’s little vitriol in it. “Please, just shut up.”

He pushes him away, refusing to shed tears over this again, but they come anyway, easily and in abundance, just as they had every day since the day she left.

He does, but only for a moment. Only long enough for Balzac to vainly attempt to pick up the pieces of himself once more, to try to piece them back together and shape them into a vague impression of what they used to be.

He waits, until he has looked back up at him, his expression bitter, wounded, and ugly, and he makes his offer.

Balzac listens. Despite himself, he listens. And as he listens, he realizes, and it almost makes him laugh. He stands to gain nothing, if he consents to this. _Damaged goods_ , he explains, in that smooth, brutally honest voice. A soul that’s been ripped so badly apart by grief, by hate? No. He would be doing him a _kindness._

It would be funny, if the whole situation weren’t so _fucking_ wretched.

He offers out his hand. Balzac takes it. He smiles at him. Balzac doesn’t smile back.

“You know,” he says, quietly, but with feeling, “I always liked you too, Balzac.”

His smile widens, and his eyes glow lambent in the candlelight. “I really, really did.”

*

It doesn’t hurt.

No, no it doesn’t hurt, not anymore.

The pain isn’t there, true.

(But then again, neither is much else.)

But maybe,

Maybe that’s the way it should be.

Maybe it’s better this way.

(Maybe you are only a vessel.)

Oh, my dear.

_This life suits you._

**Author's Note:**

> hello, delicious friends! thank you so much for stumbling upon my little offering here. [i took my Fallen London main all the way North a few years ago](https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/ellia%20stoneham/), and the experience was deeply moving and devastating and incredible and i just had to put my thoughts down about it. if you read and enjoyed this, thank you so very much. and remember, a reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely.
> 
> also i'm aware of the situation with AK and while i'm deeply disappointed, i can't deny the impact his work has had on me and so i just wanna say two things: fuck sexual predators, and no, i still don't think it justifies spreading SMEN spoilers willy-nilly, so you won't be getting them from me, sorry!
> 
> i may or may not return to the Neath someday, but if i do not, look to Ellia for guidance, and she will always lead you NORTH.


End file.
